How Fast Do Bed Bugs Spread From Room To Room?

If you recently discovered that your home is infested with bed bugs, one of your first goals should be to keep them from spreading around the house as much as possible. This begs the question, “How fast do bed bugs spread from room to room?”

Bed bugs can spread from room to room in a matter of seconds by hitching a ride on the clothing of a person who moves from room to room. Or they can spread in a matter of hours by crawling unassisted from one room to another.

The rate at which bed bugs spread throughout your house depends on how quickly you begin treatment. Keep reading to learn how to reduce the likelihood of spreading or click below to stop bed bugs in their tracks today!

Do Bed Bugs Usually Stay In One Room?

Since bed bugs do not have wings and do not jump, some people incorrectly assume that they tend to stay in one room and not travel much.

However, this is not true. Bed bugs move around quickly and seek any place where they can find their next blood meal (i.e. humans).

Bed bugs like to hang out where humans tend to lay or sit, like beds or couches or chairs, and they can squeeze into very tight spaces in clothing. So if you notice a bed bug infestation in one room of your house, if left untreated they are likely to spread to other bedrooms, living rooms, and other rooms in your house.

How Fast Do Bed Bugs Crawl?

At peak speed, bed bugs can move as fast as 4 feet per minute. However, that’s their peak speed and they do not often move at that rate. Realistically, bed bugs can easily travel as much as 100 feet or more in just one hour.

That means that regardless of whether a bed bug is squeezing between cracks in walls or even taking “the long way” out the bedroom door and into the next bedroom’s door, they could travel from room to room in just a matter of an hour or less.

How Fast Do Bed Bugs Multiply?

Female bed bugs typically lay an average of one egg per day, although they can lay as many as 5-7 eggs in a single day at their peak. It takes only 10-15 days for an egg to hatch, and a bed bug is able to reproduce about 6 weeks after hatching. And most bed bugs live approximately 4-6 months.

So initially they may seem to spread from room to room fairly slowly, which is why the best time to eradicate bed bugs is as early as possible, especially when considering that it can take as much as 3-6 weeks to completely eliminate bed bugs from your house. Over time, however, bed bugs multiply exponentially so within several weeks or months, you could have a very large infestation on your hands if you don’t get it treated.

What’s The Most Common Cause For Bed Bugs Spreading?

It is more common for bed bugs to spread by hitching a ride on a human than by simply crawling long distances from room to room, although both happen.

Bed bugs are constantly looking for their next blood meal from humans, so their chief aim is to stay close to humans and to travel to any place in the room or in the house where humans commonly sit or lie.

How To Stop Bed Bugs From Spreading

Because bed bugs spread and multiply so quickly, the most effective way to prevent bed bugs from spreading is to exterminate them as quickly as possible. Contact us today to get started!

Some people think that simply moving to another room in the house to sleep will keep the infestation isolated to just one room in the house. And for a few hours or a day or two it may seem like this method works, but since bed bugs most commonly hitch a ride on humans, within a day or two your previously “safe” room will likely become infested, making the problem even worse.

Bed bug treatment is not an easy task, especially if you do not have professional training or experience in this area. Incorrectly treating a bed bug infestation could result in larger re-infestations and further time and money wasted on treatments, replaced furniture, and more.

Choose a trusted bed bug treatment professional near you. Dominion Pest Control proudly serves Lancaster County, York County, Lebanon, and Hershey (Pennsylvania), and we have treated more than 950 bed bug infestations so far! Call us today at 717-393-7879 to schedule a free on-site inspection and start treatment right away.